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Books on my mac are not syncing to my ios devices

The books on my mac in the books app are not syncing to my ios devices. Macbook Pro running Catalina. Ios devices are running 13.4.1

How do I get the books to sync between the Mac and the Ios devices?

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.13

Posted on May 26, 2020 12:17 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jun 24, 2020 2:14 PM

I found that there are a few places on the iPad/iPhone where I needed to make a change: In Settings > Apple ID, iTunes & App Store > iCloud > I had to turn on the switch for "iCloud Drive" and for "Books". And then in Settings > Books > I had to turn on the switches under the "Syncing" section for both "Reading Now" and "iCloud Drive"


There may be other settings that need to be adjusted, but if so, they were already set on my iPad and iPhone, so I don't know what they may be.


And then on my Macbook Pro, I opened the Books app and in Preferences, made sure that the "Sync: Sync collections, bookmarks, and highlights across devices" was checked.

7 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jun 24, 2020 2:14 PM in response to sarahfromranchos

I found that there are a few places on the iPad/iPhone where I needed to make a change: In Settings > Apple ID, iTunes & App Store > iCloud > I had to turn on the switch for "iCloud Drive" and for "Books". And then in Settings > Books > I had to turn on the switches under the "Syncing" section for both "Reading Now" and "iCloud Drive"


There may be other settings that need to be adjusted, but if so, they were already set on my iPad and iPhone, so I don't know what they may be.


And then on my Macbook Pro, I opened the Books app and in Preferences, made sure that the "Sync: Sync collections, bookmarks, and highlights across devices" was checked.

Jul 11, 2020 12:04 AM in response to GadgetDon

It didn't work for me, as my setting had been set that way from the get go. My ability to load my books just abruptly stopped. And when they did, the removed all my books from my iPhone. They're all in my Books library on my Mac just fine, but they no longer show up in the Finder Sync window Books tab.


So far all the posts on this subject I've come across have all be closed by Apple, but with no real solution offered. I spent almost 3 hours with Support last week, and nothing. He couldn't figure it out, nor did he offer a solution to those who wished to offload their Books library on a separate hard drive. So, I'm beginning to think this bug is known, but is being ignored. I have over 2500 epubs, pdfs, etc., and there is no way I will be able to put them in Apple's cloud, nor should you or anyone have too, I'd have to rob a bank to pay their monthlies. We have been able to sync between devices in the past, so why not now? And if this is an underhanded way to force us into an iCloud subscription, then this is the last iPhone I buy. Too much money to get jerked around like a brand loyal fool lap dog.


As an aside, I dealt with an Apple Music subscription for four years that put my music library through the shredder and left me with over 3000 music files with no tag info. No names, titles, etc.. You know how I fixed it? I canceled my subscription. And walah! Four years of headaches gone. My Music library returned to normal.




[Edited by Moderator]


Books on my mac are not syncing to my ios devices

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